


Dreams of a Girl in a Galaxy Far, Far Away

by cat_in_converse



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Sickness, Star Wars Spoilers, all that good shit, and our sweet goddess Rey, featuring our favorite promblematic trash child Kylo, light vs dark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-02
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 02:38:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5610781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cat_in_converse/pseuds/cat_in_converse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When illness-induced nightmares plague Rey's mind, Kylo Ren is sucked into her dreams and witnesses her torment first hand.<br/>Upon feeling empathy for her, a confused and desperate Kylo Ren goes to the one place he knows he can make the dreams and unwanted emotions stop: Rey.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> I had another version of this fic up, but it wasn't my best work so I redid it and polished it up. So, don't be alarmed if you think that I've copied someone's idea-- it was my own (and the original fic is deleted now).  
> *I do not own or have any rights to Star Wars

“How is she?”  
Poe dabbed a wet cloth to her forehead, and even despite the fabric barrier between his fingertips and her skin, if felt like he was touching fire. Rey moaned under the cool towel as her head lulled from side to side erratically, a phenomenon that Poe had gotten used to.  
“Not well, that’s for sure.” He mumbled as he leaned over and tugged her blanket further up her body, knowing full well that she would eventually kick it back off. “She’s only gotten worse, I’m afraid.”  
Leia stood next to the top of the bed, her fingers gliding over Rey’s flushed cheek. A vague, distant memory of a young Ben Solo surfaced in her mind; just a little boy, still too young to go out and begin his training with Luke, who had fallen sick with some sort of cold. The circumstances were different, yes, but those motherly instincts still remained.  
Rey has done so much for Leia—so much for the _galaxy_ \-- that she felt it was her _duty_ to help Rey recover, as both an ally in the Resistance and a friend. That desire, however, seemed to be nothing short of wishful thinking.   
Whatever Rey has contracted, there is no known cure. Upon medical investigation, the healers on the D’Qar Resistance base had concluded that she had most likely contracted the illness on her last mission. The Resistance had reason to believe that the First Order was in the mist of developing a new base on an uninhabited planet a few systems east, so naturally Rey had gone to investigate. The rumor had been proven false once Rey arrived, and the mission was seemingly just a waste of time—that was, until Rey began to sweat and shake.  
Finn was more than willing to jump in a ship and make his way over to the said abandoned system in search for a cure, and with Leia working vigorously to maintain the Resistance—that left Poe to take care of Rey.  
“W-wa…” Rey sputtered, her attempt at making a single word breaking apart into nothing more than pained sounds.  
Realization crossed Poe’s eyes and he scrambled around her bedside, turning left and right to find what he knew she was asking for. Finally, he found the glass of water and held it up to her quivering lips. She drank greedily at first, but just as Poe was about to say _’pace yourself’_ , she was pushing the glass away from her face and gasping for air. It was a sickening blend of coughing and her lungs overworking—a horrifying tune that Poe had gotten the pleasure of hearing for the past few hours.  
Poe tried to get her to drink some more water—he _knew_ she was thirsty—but to no avail. Her shaking, tan hands came up and rubbed up and down the outside of her throat in a futile attempt to rid it of its pain. She was in desperate need of liquid, but it pained her to drink—it burned like acid.  
Despite the IV that the healers had been able to administer to Rey, Poe knew that it simply would not be enough. Even if she _was_ able to get a decent amount of water in her system, it would come back up her throat not even five minutes later.   
Rey pushed the back of her head further into her pillow—partly in the hope that it would swallow her whole—and closed her eyes. She was weak, so _very weak_ , she had no energy left to keep soldiering on.  
“I’ll leave you to take care of Rey.” Leia regretfully whispered. “Finn will be contacting us with an update on his findings, and should there be any news you will be the first to know. Until then, please, just keep her as comfortable as you can—even if that’s the _only_ thing you can do for her now.”  
Poe swallowed the lump in his throat and turned his attention back to the sick girl in front of him. Poe was naturally a very caring person, and it nearly killed him to see anyone like this, much less a _friend_. He has fought many battles, been tortured by the enemy, flown in some of the most dangerous air space in the galaxy—yet all that seemed pale in comparison to the war waging within Rey at that very moment.  
Little relief came when he noticed that Rey had fallen asleep. Yes, sleep for her was fleeting at best with this illness, but whenever she slept she _dreamt_. Dreams that would make her sweat, cry, and stir more than when she was awake.  
Poe waited by her bedside with a wet towel and a glass of water, ready for when she inevitably would scream herself awake.  
~*~  
Kylo Ren gripped the edges of his helmet as he crashed into the wall with his shoulder. He felt it coming on _again_.  
Quickly, he hit the two buttons on the sides of his helmet and threw it to the ground with a deafening crash that echoed through the spaceship corridor. There wasn’t a being in sight to serve as a much-desired distraction from the vision threatening to wash over him, nothing but him and the inevitable.  
Even with the mask off, Ren couldn’t breathe. His lungs pushed air in and out violently, but still, he couldn’t seem to catch a single breath.   
He pounded the palm of his leather-coated hand against the temple of his head, a futile attempt to ward off the impending images worming their way into his brain. It was like a disgusting parasite, one that took hold of Ren’s being—even if it was just for a short while—and pushed him out of reality.  
He stopped fighting it when black spots, like drips of ink in water, blanketed over his sight. His knees buckled and he fell to the floor like a rag doll, his last thought being that he hoped this would be short enough so that Hu didn’t come to corridor to catch him in such a vulnerable state.  
 _This dream started on Jakku.  
He deduced that they were in fact_ _dreams_ _—belonging to Rey, no less—after the first two times. The visions were never a far cry from reality, but just warped enough to show that they stemmed from unconscious thought.  
This one, it seemed, pays pilgrimage to her place of childhood; the long, never-ending sand dunes of the lonely planet in which her journey as a Jedi had begun. It was such a pathetic planet in Ren’s eyes, nothing more than a floating rock full of thieves and scavengers. Not a place he cared to visit in dream or reality.  
His dark eyes roamed over the hills, searching for her—she was always there. This was, after all, her dream to begin with.   
She was only a few feet from where he stood, a curled up figure in the sand. As he approached her, he took note of her shivering frame and chattering teeth—not a normal occurrence for someone in a desert.  
He noticed her skin glistening with sweat, the bags under her eyes, her knotted hair—she looked sickly, like someone nearing death.  
“What’s wrong with you?” He asked, though he knew she couldn’t hear him. He was, just like in the previous visions, just a witness. Unwillingly dragged into a dream, completely powerless to change it or leave.  
“Get out of my head, get out of my head, get out of my head…” She murmured, her hands coming up and dragging down her face.  
He bent his knees to kneel beside her, leaning in so he was nearly nose-to-nose with her. In the small glimpses of her eyes that he managed to catch between her fingers, he saw insanity. Torture. Pain.  
He saw much of himself, actually. She was being torn apart.  
“Ben Solo—leave me alone!” She shouted.  
He teetered back, nearly falling with his butt on the sand. It was… it was him in her head?  
The skies of Jakku changed drastically upon the name ‘Ben Solo’ leaving Rey’s lips; its original orange and yellow hue took on a more sinister red, only to be clouded by black and grey clouds overhead. Rain—something unheard of on the sand planet—began to fall from the heavens, each drop stained crimson.  
The body of Han Solo rested next to her, and with one final scream the dream abruptly ended._  
Ren opened his eyes to a world tilted on its side. No matter how many times he awakes from her nightmares, he never gets used to the transfer back to reality. Each time it gets harder and harder to difference fiction from the real world, even now he still could see the blood rain and hear her screams.  
Eventually, the images fade, but the feeling lingers. It always does. The pain and sickness Rey emits catches hold of him, and despite his rigorous attempts to free himself of such emotion, the bond between him and the girl only solidifies.  
The Force calls to him, beckons him toward the broken girl crying on the other side of the galaxy. He shouldn’t want to give in, he should be able to hone in on his leader Snoke’s training to help guide him back to the darkness—but Rey’s light is blinding.   
These dreams have only happened twice in the course of one day, and if it continued for much longer, Ren began to question whether he will be able to maintain his sanity. What was left of it, anyways.  
It has only taken this short, pathetic amount of time for him to nearly reach a breaking point—how long will this extend? What has changed in Rey, what is causing her these monstrous dreams?  
And, perhaps the most important question; why was Ren dragged into them.  
The universe flows and moves, taking the fate of two and merging it into one—this he knew. Despite your origin—Sith, Jedi, Knight of Ren, or even just a simple merchant floating about in the Dagobah system—you knew this. It was an accepted part of life. Still, why _him_?  
In all of the galaxies, Ren and Rey were probably the most polar; ice and fire, water and oil, _dark and light_.   
His training under Snoke has taught him to let go of passion, to cast it aside as he did to the Jedi ways. And, for a long while, he was able to do that. But, after these dreams, all he could think about was Rey.   
He needed answers—and, though he wouldn’t admit it to himself, he had to know what was causing her pain—and there was only one way to do that; he was coming to her.  
~*~  
Poe’s finger twitched at the trigger of his blaster, unable to push it but still _so close_.  
He couldn’t move, he shoot, and most of all—he couldn’t _protect Rey_.  
Kylo Ren held his gloved hand up and bound Poe’s limbs with the Force, a position similar to their first encounter on Jakku. However, the circumstances were different back then.  
Poe never would have thought that Ren would march right into the thick of the Resistance—especially not _by himself_. Poe notices that Ren made no move to grab his saber, nor did he hurt any of the guards he had to get by to reach Rey’s room within the base. He simply switched off their consciousness with the flick of a wrist, even before they could think to make a grab at their weapons.  
“I swear, if you touch her—“  
“You’ll what?” Ren asked slowly, his deep voice echoing through the room from the speaker in his mask. There was always something threatening laced in his tone, but also something rather curious. Always taunting, always _playing_.   
It was a voice that demanded to be heard, demanded respect, and above all it demanded response. Whether it be anger or fear or violence, there was almost always a reaction that followed what he said. He was meticulous in words and tone, it—apart from his red saber—was one of his most lethal weapons.  
“You’re going to come in here and kill her in her sleep then? What a prick—you’re a prick, you know that?”   
Ren had little interest in Poe’s name calling, nor did he want to start a quarrel between himself and the young man. He was here on a mission—an unconventional one by the standards of the Knights of Ren, but still a mission nonetheless.  
With a small twist of his fingers, Poe’s gun flew out of his grip and landed in Ren’s hand, only to be crushed into shards. “She’s not sleeping. She is merely on the edge of consciousness; too tired to open her eyes, but too awake to dream.”  
Poe’s brows furrowed in confusion, his gaze cast away from Ren and to the girl on the bed next to him.   
“Trust me,” Ren added, much quieter than before. “If she was sleeping, I would _know_.”  
Unarmed and clearly no match for Kylo Ren, Poe was realeased from the Force’s hold and went sent stumbling to the ground. Ren skirted around the fighter piolet and took a seat beside Rey on the bed, his hip just a mere inch from her pillow.  
The bond he had felt galaxies away seemed to shake now, he was so close to her that he could _feel_ the excitement between them.  
And, apparently, she had felt it too.  
Poe watched in shock as Rey was lulled out of her hazy state, just barely enough strength in her to open her eyes. She saw the hooded, masked figure before her but didn’t seem frightened—the connection she felt eased any worries she may have had.  
In her sick state, her mind was muddled and lost. She _shouldn’t_ find pleasure in his presence, but her reaction was dictated solely on her natural instinct.  
That bond, she held on to it like a lifeline.  
Ren noticed her lips were so chapped that dried blood had beaded between the cracks, and that she continuously was swallowing.   
“When was the last time she drank fluids?” Ren asked, tugging his gloves off one finger at a time and tossing them on the bed.  
“You mean… you’re _not_ going to kill her?” Poe asked, completely baffled.  
“Not today.” Ren assured him truthfully. “Fluids. When was the last time she had them?”  
One day, he expects, her life will come to an end in his hands. They were, after all, enemies by nature. But right at this very moment, the mere thought of ending her whilst she lay dying in the bed turned his stomach.  
That wouldn’t be a battle, it would be a _murder_. No pride behind the fight—actually, not fight _at all_.   
“A few hours.” Poe answered slowly. “She refuses, it hurts her throat.”  
Ren wrapped his long fingers around the base of the cool glass on the table next to him, then lifted the rim up to her lips. Her nose scrunched up and she looked away, making soft noises of protest.  
“Drink the damn water.” He ordered, taking hold of her chin and stirring it towards the glass once again. She opened her mouth in protest once again, only to have Ren tip the glass up and pour some of the liquid down her throat.  
She nearly coughed up the fluids upon having them suddenly given to her, but Ren’s hand moved from her chin to the back of her head to keep it so she couldn’t look away.  
“If you don’t drink, you’ll become dehydrated.” Ren scolded, sounding rather annoyed. “It’s basic survival, Rey—I thought you would have known that.”  
Though she didn’t finish the glass, Ren allowed for her to stop once he deemed the amount taken as enough—at least for now.   
Tears pooled at the edges of her eyes as her hands came up to furiously rub her throat. Poe leaned back and watched as Ren—the man that had become one of the biggest enemies of the Resistance—swept loose strands of hair from Rey’s face.  
“I saw you… in my dreams…” Rey gasped out. “You were there…”  
Ren paused, his fingers hovering above her forehead. “Why didn’t you say anything, then? If you knew I was there—“  
Rey’s chest heaved as she conjured up enough energy to reply. “I…I was scared, so scared… that you weren’t actually there… you were just a trick, a background in my dreams…”  
“If you had just spoken to me, you would have known—“  
“I was scared that you wouldn’t reply, and then I would know that I was truly alone.”  
Rey’s shaking hands came up to Ren’s mask, her fingers running over the buttons on the sides and pushing them. A hissing sound followed her action and the mouth piece moved out of place, allowing for her to lift the helmet off of him.  
He didn’t know _why_ he let her do it, but for some reason, the action seemed to just _fit_. His wavy black hair, his crooked jaw and nose, the brown moles that dotted across his tan face—he looked so _human_ without the mask on.  
“Why—“ She began, only to be cut off by her own coughs. “Why did you come here?”  
Ren thought for a moment, his adams apple bobbing up and down as he swallowed. “Your dreams—as you already know, I see them. They take over. They take control of me and I can’t do anything about it. I came here to help you… _overcome_ whatever it is that you are struggling with, for the sake of regaining my peace of mind.”  
“Is that all?”  
 _No._  
“Of course. Once you have healed and the nightmares stop, as will this temporary truce.”  
Ren had avoided running into Leia and Chewbacca, and he rather loathed the idea of sticking around long enough to see them. Too many loose ends, too many old ties—things he has spent years trying to forget, and it was all in one place.  
Still, that look in Rey’s eyes sparked something in his chest; a small feeling of belonging. There was a shameful sense of worth and gratitude he gained from helping Rey, like it was his _job and duty_ to do so. He _shouldn’t_ feel that way, but he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling.  
The bond has been made, one stronger than any Resistance or First Order combined.  
There has been an awakening; Rey’s felt it, he’s felt it. There was no mistake in the Force’s intentions for the pair, but still, Ren found himself resisting—pointlessly.


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I got such a positive response for the first chapter of this that I just had to continue it. This is the second part out of three, so that way it isn't such a cliffhanger for anyone reading XD.  
> This chapter contains some throwing up and mentions of torture, just in case that happens to be a trigger for anyone. Apart from that, enjoy!  
> *I do not own any rights to Star Wars.

The inevitable came, as much as Ren wished it wouldn’t  
He came to Rey’s side for only one reason; to heal her so he could rid himself of her dreams, so he could live as he had before she had fallen sick. Simple by principle, but flawed in the details. He _knew_ that Leia ran the Resistance base on D’Qar, and even though he had been able to evade her presence when he initially arrived, it was only a matter of time before she would find him.  
His past _always_ found him.  
There she stood, gripping the metal doorway for support as she saw him sitting before her.   
He was a ghost, always in the galaxy and always in the same battles that she was, yet seldom did she ever see him. And when she _did_ , it was nothing more than a glance. A sickening, dark sliver of a second between stacks of fallen soldiers. But here, beside Rey with his hand around her glass of water and his helmet off his head, he didn’t look like the enemy… he looked like her _son_.  
Poe, who was sitting at the foot of Rey’s bed, bowed his head in respect to the General—but also with a smidge of shame. He didn’t look her in the eyes. “He came a few hours ago to… _help_ with Rey. I was going to go tell you, but he wouldn’t let me leave. I am very sorry General…”  
Leia inched in the room just enough for the door to slide shut behind her. Ren swallowed, though his eyes remained on the sick girl before him. The door was closed, and suddenly the overwhelming presence of Leia was unescapable. Her aura flowed throughout the room like sand in water, taking up every corner and crack. A free, untamed variation of the Force that was unique to only her. He was like that once too, but then Snoke took hold of him and made his power the First Order’s personal brand of the Force. He was made to emulate the Siths before him, to resemble _evil_.  
The light in the room began to suffocate him.  
“Should I call you Kylo Ren, or Ben Solo?”  
Taken by surprise at the question, Ren’s head snapped up to her direction. His jaw tensed and his eyes hardened, a look he had grown to use often in the First Order. With Hux and Snoke always analyzing him, he had to look sharp, threatening, and appear emotionally neutral. That was part of why he liked the helmet so much, without it he felt… _vulnerable_.  
“Kylo Ren if you must, though I would rather you call me nothing at all.” Ren said. “I shouldn’t be here long enough for you to find any reason to address me.”  
His words sounded as sharp and precise as any Sith she had ever encountered, always with purpose—usually to hurt—but she still heard _him_. There was a waver in his voice, one that everyone else missed—apart from Leia.   
Leia—a princess, a general, a widow, his _mother_ \-- has never seemed to foreign to him. He knew her from a past life, one where he was a different person living a different life.   
The child known as Ben Solo, the one that he had killed all those years ago when he joined the First Order, was calling to him. It wanted his mother.  
Ren felt the knuckles of someone’s hand brush by his cheek, light enough to have been a feather but hot enough to have been the flames of a fire licking his skin.  
His attention was brought back to Rey. Just in the few hours alone of him being here, she had gone incredibly downhill; her skin was coated in a layer of glistening sweat, her eyes were glassy, her fingers never once stopped shaking… the list went on and on.  
However, as her health declined, the bond grew stronger. Not to say that that was a _good_ thing, at least to Ren—he didn’t _want_ all of her emotions lining his thoughts, penetrating his heart like some sort of parasite.   
“What is it?” Ren asked her, knowing that the touch was not of affection, but rather to tell him something. Seldom did she use her voice anymore, it caused tears to come to her eyes just to speak two words because of how raw her throat felt.  
Her knuckles slid from the top of his cheek bone and fell down suddenly as she lost her strength to hold up her arm. Ren barely caught her wrist just in time so that it wouldn’t smack into the metal frame of the bed.  
“What is it?” He repeated. “What—oh. _Oh_.”  
Poe and Leia watched as Ren quickly helped her sit up and snatched the metal bucket beside him. With his hand resting on her back to keep her sitting upright, he looked away as Rey lost whatever contents she had been able to get in her body. Mostly water, really.  
Hot, large tears rolled off of her cheeks into the bucket as she reached up and roughly ran the palm of her hand over her throat, desperately trying to alleviate at least _a little_ of the searing pain that resided there.   
“Stop that, you know that it doesn’t do anything.” Ren reached up and grabbed her hand, only to have her smack his out of the way so she could continue viciously rubbing at her throat. Frustrated, Ren once again grabbed her hand—this time locking her fingers in his own and forcing her hand down into her lap. With the Force, he lifted the bucket and put it on the floor beside him to prevent Rey from knocking it over. “I said _stop that_.”  
Leia, snapping out of her trance in watching her son, skirted over to where Rey was and lightly pushed on her shoulder so she laid back down on her pillow.  
“You shouldn’t be so cold with her.” Leia said to Ren, though her eyes were trained to Rey as she pushed hair out of her face and adjusted her blankets.   
It was not in Ren’s nature to be caring and sweet, nor was it to be _gentle_. If he saw Rey doing something that was mindless or could even hurt her, he’d tell her to stop—and if she didn’t, he’d _make_ her stop. He saw no point in being kind when she was being destructive and irrational.  
He ripped his hand out of Rey’s and jumped up from his seat, kicking the chair from under him and sending it flying into the wall opposite of Rey’s bed. “I’m not a _healer_ , damn it! I’m only here to get her damn dreams out of my head, not to _praise her_ or make her _comfortable_  
“And I certainly don’t need you scolding me, you are not my mother anymore.” He hissed, jabbing a finger in Leia’s direction.  
However, despite his menacing stance and unstable tone, Leia—as always—stood her ground. Backing away from the sick girl, she stood straight and put her hands on her hips. “You _are_ still my son, don’t fool yourself into thinking you aren’t. I have— _we_ have—lost too much to lose each other now. Can’t you see how lucky we are, how we are given this chance to—“  
Ren knew this was coming, he knew she was going to try to convince him of something. Whether that be to come home, or to join the light side, it didn’t matter. He wasn’t having any of it.  
This was something he was familiar with, something he took comfort in—a battle. Even though it was verbal and without blood, it was satisfying enough.   
“I have said this before; I am only here to get Rey’s visions out of my head. Every time she dreams, I see it—I want it to stop.” He gritted his teeth. “I am in no way here to mend any sort of ties I have cut.”  
Poe, who had been watching the mother-son pair go at it with a careful eye, bit his lip in fear. Ren was still a murder, still as unstable as his saber, and there was no telling what he would do when he got angry.   
Ren’s fingers were itching to grab his light saber out of his belt and slash a wall.  
Rey, in the mist of all the action, began to nod off. Ren abruptly stopped his quarrel with his mother upon a subtle thumping in his brain. Shakily, he stumbled back to Rey’s side and desperately shook her shoulders—but to no avail.  
“Rey, _Rey_!” He felt himself slipping into a place in which he didn’t want to go, and he was losing his grasp on reality.  
Rey was just too tired to be shaken awake, too tired to stop from dreaming.  
Blackness coats his vision and his knees give, causing him to fall over Rey’s body on the bed. With his face buried into the blankets above her stomach, he gave up. There was no point in fighting it, no point in trying.  
He was already there.  
 _It was the interrogation room.  
Ren was the third person in the room, a witness once more to the nightmare; before him stood Kylo Ren and Rey.  
The fake Ren, the one conjured up by the dream, held his hand out in a claw-like pose to Rey’s face. Rey, who was strapped against the torture table, screwed her eyes shut and whimpered as her mind was being violated.  
Though the sight was uneasy to watch, he knew what was going to happen. He knew that she would eventually push back and dive into his own thoughts, as the memory was supposed to go.  
But, the thing was, this was a dream—a nightmare. Rey, for some unfathomable reason, was unable to draw enough energy to push back against the dream Ren. Her whimpers turned to screams, her eyes growing wide and wild as she felt every inch of her brain being leaved through like a book.  
Finding thoughts in someone’s brain—especially with someone as skilled with the Force as Ren was—didn’t have to make it hurt as much as Rey was feeling. Ren specialized in pain and torture, as he was trained to do, so when the time arose he made the most out of it.  
It was sick and twisted, but Snoke had taught him to enjoy the feeling. His goal when he captured Rey was to find the map—something she had already seen—and in order to do that all he had to do was search her memories. Still, he made it hurt. He main her brain sting and feel like it was going to explode, much like he had done with Poe earlier.  
Seeing it as a third person, not being directly involved in the action… it made him disgusted.  
Ren curled his hands into fists at his sides, his dark eyes narrowing at his dream-self. Without hesitation, and without a plan, he barreled forward and knocked over the other Ren with incredible force.  
Rey’s eyes found his—he saw the fear.  
“Ben… help me.”   
His actions stalled upon hearing the name ‘Ben’. He has heard her say it before, more than he cared to think about, but it has been so long since he has heard her say anything that smoothly. Back in reality, where she lay asleep, the few times she has managed to spit out a word it was always raspy and pained. But here, when she said his name… it was some sort of breath of fresh air. His name—the name he has sworn off for so long—sounded so goddamn beautiful rolling off of her lips.  
The dream Ren stumbled from his place on the ground and jumped over Ren, knocking him over. They went at it for a while, but got nowhere; their skill was equal, and each move they threw out the other one mirrored. They were, after all, the same being—in a sense.  
He figured that he deserved this, that this was something he had coming to him for a very long time. So, he gave up. There was no point in fighting a battle that he was never going to end.  
Every hit that his clone gave him held the gravity of a life that he had taken. Every soldier that had fallen to his saber, all the blood that stained his hands… he felt it. He felt all of it.  
Suddenly, this wasn’t just Rey’s nightmare._  
Ren’s eyes flew open with a gasp, his skin glistening with enough sweat to resemble Rey’s.  
Ren’s body was shaking, and he tried _desperately_ to keep the tears that pricked at his eyes from falling. It was trained into his brain, into every fiber of his being by Snoke; be tough, be strong, don’t let weakness show.   
All of those lessons from the dark side crumbled when Rey pulled Ren into her arms. Through the bond, she sensed his pain and confusion. With all the strength she had left in her failing body, she managed to scoot Ren’s frame up so it lined up with her.  
His face was buried in her neck, and he cast away the thought of his mother and the fighter piolet watching them—he finally let himself cry.   
It was soft, quiet sobs that set off waves of sadness throughout the entire base.   
“They have a bond, one struck through the Force.” Leia observed.   
“What does that mean?” Poe inquired.  
Leia’s lips curled into a small, sad smile. She watched as her son, as _Ben Solo_ let each of his demons melt away, leaving someone as vulnerable as the day he was born. There was no question in her mind; once this was over and he has spent all of his tears, he would inevitably go back to the way he has been for years now—back to the person he was comfortable being.  
But, for now, he was simply human.  
“It means that they need each other.”  
Poe shook his head and furrowed his brows. He was not Force sensitive, nor did he understand how it worked. “They’re opposites, isn’t that a toxic combination?”  
“They provide balance. He has gone too far into the dark, this bond helps Rey pull him back. This is his path to redemption.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My poor lil problematic son Kylo :-(. Poor bb.  
> And, of course, my fav "I take shit from literally no one" gal: Leia. What a character.


	3. Three

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! Thank you all for reading! And, please keep in mind, I haven't edited this chapter yet, so just ignore any spelling errors. They are bound to be in there.  
> *I do not have any rights to Star Wars

Finn arrived just as Rey had begun to see things.  
Ren did his best to keep her in the _here and now_ , but it seemed to be a futile effort. It wasn’t a dream, no, she was still very much awake when she saw these hallucinations. A part of Ren was relieved that he wasn’t sucked into them like he had been in her nightmares, but... there was a deeper, more empathetic part of him—one he has grown to detest—that wanted to be with her. Now, he was just as clueless as to what she was going through as the rest of them, at least in her dreams he could _protect_ her.  
Not that he _really_ should have any reason to _want_ to protect her; should she die due to this illness, he would be the luckiest man in the galaxy… right? The visions would stop—as was the initial reasoning behind his journey to the Resistance base—and his enemy would have fallen. Her death wouldn’t cause him any shame, he hadn’t attacked her in any way in her weak form.  
Still, there was that _bond_. If Ren could, he would have slashed it in half with his saber. It would save him a lot of pain and strength, that was for sure. He didn’t understand why the Force bonded him with a dying girl—his enemy no less—only to form a connection and lose her. What kind of sick, twisted game was that for the universe to play? In all of the stars, moons, and systems out there, surely there was another being in which Ren would be more suited to be bonded to.  
His bitterness, as strong as it was, was cast aside when he noticed that Rey was looking at the wall behind him. Her hooded eyes wandered over Ren’s shoulder, a frown tugging at her cracked lips.  
“What do you see?” Ren asked gently, knowing too loud of a voice frightened her in this frail condition.  
Leia and Poe, both of whom had refused to leave Rey’s side with Ren near her, watched carefully at the interaction between the two. It was a strange, yet rather interesting connection that they shared. Leia knew her son well—he was much like his father—and she could tell when he was masking emotions… neither of the Solo men were good at that. She saw Ren consistently trying to separate himself from her, but just as he successfully begins to pull back, a coughing fit or other concerning effects of the illness brought him back in.  
Poe was much less trusting of Ren, he only agreed to play nice under General Leia’s orders. Ren—though seemingly conflicted with his own demons—was still with the First Order. Poe remembers being strapped to the metal table on their base, barely clinging onto life and hope, and in walks Ren; a wanna-be Sith with an unhealthy pleasure in torturing people.   
In Poe’s opinion, there _had_ to have been some mistake. Now, he was no expert in the Force, but there was some obvious flaws in this _bond_ that Rey and Ren shared. Why not Finn? Finn was someone that Poe would go to any system with, trust on any mission anywhere—he was the most trust-worthy man in the galaxy. Surely Rey would have benefited more from a bond with _him_ and not Ren. Or, perhaps, Poe himself. Poe had been at her side since the moment this illness had begun to show itself; taking care of her, making her comfortable, keeping her _alive_. Not to say he particularly _wanted_ to be bonded to her, it just made more sense opposed to the Knight of Ren sitting before him.  
“Rey, what do you see?” Ren pushed, even going as far to throw a glance over his shoulder to assure himself that there really _wasn’t_ anyone there.  
“Unkar Plutt,” She murmured, his voice cracking painfully. “Why—you should be… on Jakku…”  
The wall said nothing, but she _heard_ something. Tears sprung from her eyes and she shook her head violently, seemingly in some sort of protest.  
“I won’t…go back…” She coughed violently, and for a moment Ren questioned whether to snatch the bucket again. “I owe you… _nothing_ …”  
Ren searched their bond to get a sense of the person she was talking to, seeing as he couldn’t see them himself. It was like a ship log of sorts, all he had to do was throw in the name _’Unkar Plutt’_ and he got little reactions, little bits of information; Jakku, debt, chains, food and rations, never being able to leave. Basically, whatever she associated with the being.  
Ren leaned forward and ran the pad of his thumb over her cheekbone, prompting Rey to break her gaze with the wall and look at him. “He’s not there, you’re safe here.”  
She shook her head the best she could in his grip and tried to look back at her hallucination, but failed to fight against Ren’s lock on her head.  
“No—eyes on me.” Ren ordered, then grew frustrated when she continued to defy him. He wasn’t used to this much resistance from anyone. “ _Eyes on me_.”  
When she finally caught a glimpse of where she had seen Unkar Plutt, her face fell. Her struggling stopped and she went limp under Ren’s touch.  
“He’s… not there.” She managed.  
Sadness and fear rang through the bond like a sour note in a song. Ren’s grip naturally softened, what was he to do with her? He was not trained in the art of mending fractured mental states, much less _hearts_. Her emotions were flooding him, and the design of the bond they shared made it so he could not avoid them.  
“I’m going… _insane_ …” She moaned, her hands reaching up to cover her eyes.  
Ren didn’t know what to say, there was no good response. He could just tell her that she was merely experiencing the symptoms of her illness, although that would inevitably lead everyone to question just how little time she had left—especially with a condition as far along as hers.   
He looked over his shoulder to his mother, silently pleading for assistance. Leia, who had been watching to see what he would do with her, kicked off the wall and skirted around to Rey’s side. He lifted his hands from her face and backed away quickly, desperate to put any sort of space he could between himself… well, _both_ his mother and Rey.  
As Leia did her best to calm Rey down—though she knew that it should have been her _son_ doing it—the door opened. Ren, being as distracted as he was, didn’t sense the man’s presence coming towards the room before it was too late—it wasn’t until he closed the door behind him that Ren recognized the being: the _traitor_.  
Ren spun around and locked into a defensive position, his bare hand hovering above his lightsaber at his waist. Though, it wasn’t really needed—Poe held Finn back before he could even reach for his blaster.  
“Stop, _stop_.” Poe hissed. “This Nerf herder is here to help Rey…apparently.”  
Finn furrowed his brows and glared a Ren, pure hatred and anger burned in his eyes. The type of hatred that Snoke had taught Ren to utilize in battle, to drive him to do what he never thought possible. _Dangerous_ anger.  
“Finn, buddy, we’re desperate here.” Poe said, drawing Finn away from his gaze. Poe gestured to Rey’s failing body, watching as her weak form moaned and let out small cries in Leia’s arms. “You just got back from the system she was infected in, yeah? Tell me you got good news.”  
Finn, making a mental note to watch Ren closely, shook his head. “I visited all the neighboring planets, no one knows anything about any illness—much less a cure. It’s… it’s still a mystery.”  
Ren wanted to scream, wanted to slash every wall, chair, piece of furniture in the room. Rey felt it too, and despite her fragile state, she managed to whimper in his direction. His attention was caught and he looked at her quickly, and upon seeing that he was worrying her, he loosened his stance.  
Not here, not now. Should she survive, the violent urge would go away—should she die, then there was no reason to hold back.  
Finn continued, clearly not seeing Ren’s anger boil behind his dark eyes. “I asked the locals if there was any—any _at all_ \-- inhabitants of the planet that I could talk to, they said the only things that reside there are these sort of creatures, nasty little animals that---“  
“Animals?” Ren asked, all anger fleeing him. “I thought the planet she went to was uninhabited.”  
Leia saw the spark in her son’s eyes and the wheels turning in his head, a curious sight. Stepping away from Rey and walking towards Ren, she slowly said, “There was no civilization, no intelligent life. Which, I suppose, isn’t entirely _uninhabited_. Why?”  
That was it, Ren _knew_. Without an explanation behind his inquiry, he skirted around his mom and came to Rey’s side. He lifted his hands so the palm side hovered just over her, and after a deep breath and a moment of concentration, he slowly moved his hands over her body. Like a medical scanner, the Force provided him with what he was looking for; the source of her illness.  
Ripping of her blanket and pushing her shirt up, he revealed her pale stomach. Poe and Finn nearly tripped over each other as they ran to stop him—because _who knows_ what he was doing—but by the time they got to him he had already found what he was looking for.  
With his bare pointer finger—one that was ice compared to her burning skin—he traced a circle around the point of interest; a small, fading bite mark.  
“She never had a disease, that’s why there was no cure.” Ren hissed out, infuriated with himself that he neglected to think of this before. “She must have been bitten, and now the venom of the bite is killing her.”  
Of _course_ the med team missed it; the bite was small and blended in, they had been searching for an _illness_ , and it seemed as though Rey didn’t recall any sort of bite—so why _would_ they think it was anything other than disease?  
 _This would have never happened had she been taken care of in the First Order medical bay,_ Ren thought bitterly.  
~*~  
After identifying the bite and thus creating an antidote, Rey was visibly better. Her shaking had stopped, the glistening sweat which had coated her skin disappeared, and most of all—the dreams stopped.  
Ren was free.  
Later that night when the Resistance base had gone to sleep, Ren snuck into her room. Leia had provided Ren with a room and a bed to stay the night in—one that oddly resembled a cell in a prison—but he had no intention of staying. Once everyone around him was deep in sleep, he had gone to see his enemy one last time.  
Her hands were folded above her stomach, her breathing was even, and her eyes were lightly shut—a significant difference from the state she had been in hours before. She was, admittedly, _beautiful_ \-- though he would rather die than say that out loud.  
His lips curled up just a smidge at the sight of her, reassuring himself that she was in fact still there and still breathing. He blames the bond, the bond is what drove him to check on her.  
In fact, it was the damn bond that made him do _everything_ ; going to D’Qar, taking care of her, _caring_ when she was in pain. That wasn’t him at all.  
With his helmet tucked between his hip and hand, he turned to leave—only to hear a voice.  
“Ben—wait.”  
 _That name_. It was that name again, the one that haunted and tortured him almost as much as the bond itself did.  
He turned to see Rey holding out her hand in his direction. “Come here.”  
He didn’t know why he obeyed—certainly he didn’t have any respect or loyalties to her—but he found his feet betraying his mind and bringing him to her side. The color had returned to her cheeks, he saw, and the light to her eyes.  
“Why are you leaving?”  
He looked to the side, knowing full well that she could read his emotions clearly without his mask on. Hell, she didn’t even _need_ the mask to know his emotions, it was all right there between them.  
“I told you; once you were better, this truce would be severed.” He quipped. “And, by the looks of things, you have gotten better.”  
He felt her pick up his hand, and when he looked to her face she was frowning. “You put your gloves back on.”  
He just nodded—what was he to say to that? State the obvious, something she had already observed? Wasting his breath—wasting him _time_.  
She pressed her lips to the palm of his gloved hand, and without thinking, his fingers gently curled under her chin and lifted her gaze to him. There was something awfully intimate about the scene; Rey kissing his hand, him holding her face, the darkness spread out around them. But, in the same sense, it was also rather sad—like the picture of a man leaving his lover in the middle of the night.  
They weren’t lovers, not yet—not _ever_ , if Ren could help it.  
“Then go, Kylo Ren.” She said, parting her lips from his glove and leaning back into her pillow. His hand felt empty without her, cold.  
He slipped on his helmet and cast away his burning emotions. They would meet again, surely, and until that time came the bond between them would plague his mind and his heart—but he had little choice. Snoke would realize he was gone, if he hasn’t already, and he simply wasn’t ready to let go of the First Order.  
As he slipped out of the base, he was Kylo Ren—but could couldn’t help but think that Ben Solo, just maybe, was still alive within him.  
For now, however, he would do his best to ignore it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ;-;


End file.
